This week we will take a close look at close reading- how to scaffold and what to do when students just aren't getting it. Strategies and ideas are all adapted from Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey's article "Contingency Teaching During Close Reading" in the December/January 2014/15 issue of The Reading Teacher.
Let's start with scaffolds teachers can use with students during close reads.
- Repeated Reading: In order to maintain student engagement during a second and third reading of the same text, it is important to give students a new purpose for reading, or ask new questions. Students can also reread to provide evidence to an answer. Awesome side effect? Improved reading fluency through repeated reads.
- Text Dependent Questions: Teachers should have A LOT of questions on the ready, even though they won't all be used. Think of the following levels of complexity when composing questions- What does the text say? How does the text work? What does the text mean?
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| Text Dependent Questions (based on the book Tops and Bottoms). |
- Collaborative Conversations: Close readings should not be silent or independent. They are a great opportunity for students to voice their ideas, provide evidence, learn from others, and take ownership of the content.
- Annotations: Students should write annotations that relate to the central idea or confusing parts. They can include questions, summaries, or inferences in their own words. This is even possible when students are reading text on a tablet with the help of an app called "Skitch."
So you've done all this wonderful scaffolding and your students still just aren't getting it. Here are a couple of contingency plans that teachers have found to be effective when these breakdowns occur.
- Re-establish the purpose: For those times when students are on a tangent or get caught up on an issue they can't resolve, remind students of the purpose or question of this particular reading. Students (and teachers) sometimes tend to do too much with a reading, and re-establishing the purpose helps keep everyone focused on the day's task.
- Analyzing Questions: Clear up the confusion by reminding students to think of the QAR strategy to determine if the question is Right There, Think and Search, You and the Author, or On Your Own. Analyzing the question has been proven to be an effective strategy, so it definitely has a place in cold reads.
- Prompting and Cueing: Instead of telling students what you're thinking, use prompts and cues to get them back on track.
- Modeling: Many of us are familiar with modeling our thinking BEFORE setting students out to work on their own, but modeling can also be effective during the close reading lesson. Here are a couple of modeling strategies:
- Model that which is difficult for the students
- Model ways to resolve problems
- Model how you interact with the text
- Analyzing Annotations: It is ok to stop the lesson, collect text, and analyze annotations to figure out the students' breakdown in thinking. After analyzing the annotations, a new instructional plan can be put in place to address the difficulties or misconceptions of the students.
So, how have close readings been going in your classroom? Have you had success with any of the above mentioned scaffolding or contingency strategies? Or are there other strategies that you have found to be more effective? Let us know in the comments!
Want to dig deeper? Check out these resources:
Very thorough. Love the tables to break it down.
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